Picture Frames

“They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.” Romans 1:25

“Now I know I’ve got to find these pictures frozen in my mind of a life I never knew”- Nick Lachey   

"Your hope cannot be put in some dreamed-up future. It must be in the God who knows your past, present, and future, and loves you enough to give you the best."-Lady in Waiting

I have been convicted lately about the fixation that many girls in this generation, myself included, have with our futures (i.e. marriage, kids, family, husbands…etc).

If Satan can distract you with something, anything…he will. Whatever will get your focus off Christ and get you off track and shift your focus he will use—even if it is in the form of something “godly.”

We can get so fixated on the image we have painted that we don’t see what God has already given us. The image you have in your mind maybe nothing like what God has planned.

Growing up my mom always had pictures line the wall of  the hallway leading upstairs to all the bedrooms. Pictures of my sister and I from when we were first born all the way up through elementary school. There have always been pictures throughout the house, and even as I got older my room was always filled with pictures of my friends and I. A picture captures a moment in time—a moment you hope to not forget. A picture can take your mind on a journey back in time and before you know it you are reliving that moment—no matter how great or heartbreaking it might have been. Maybe in the moment that picture symbolized joy, but now it brings pain. Maybe it use to represent pain and now it symbolizes joy, or maybe it means just as much to you now as it did then. A simply wonderful moment captured--A moment frozen in time.

            This whole idea of pictures has been coming to my mind lately, but in a way I did not imagine. The Lord has been showing me over and over again that I have had these pictures in my mind of how I thought my life would look. Beautifully decorated frames that line the walls of my mind with images I have I come up with of how my life should look. Over the years I have carefully hung these picture frames without realizing it. They are beautiful frames—antique frames with the most elegant details and craftsmanship one can imagine, and the most subtle shade of gold. They are also very large and somewhat heavy. They hold imagines of a life I dream of: a husband, kids, ministry, home, the life I dream of. Each frame tells a story of what I am hoping for one day. These beautifully detailed frames hold pictures, and images that I cherish. But, they are pictures of a life I have never known.

            You have to admit that if you walked in someone’s house and saw all the pictures on their walls and asked them who the people were in the frames, and they said “I don’t know” you might find that a little strange. To have pictures around your house or hung on your wall of people you don’t know is a little weird. I am not talking about not having dreams and desires. I am saying have we taken those dreams, and desires and made them permanent fixtures in our lives. By the time you are hanging a picture of something on your wall you are planning on it staying there for a while. You are not planning on taking that picture down anytime soon. When my mom hung up those pictures in the hallway they were with the intention of them not going anywhere.

           

            That is what I had to come to recently. I had taken my dreams and my desires and hung them on the walls of my mind with no intention of them coming down—only coming true.

After a talk with a friend of mine about how girls today make “lists” of their future husbands, and how they hold so tightly to those that they may miss out on who God actually has for them, because he is missing just one of their qualities. I had been thinking the same thing for the past few months, and that conversation confirmed what I had been thinking and feeling. I am at the point of actually throwing “my list” away. Why?

1)   I don’t need a piece of paper to remind me of what Biblically I should be looking for/ waiting on

2)   My picture may not be at all what God wants for me

It really comes down to a surrendered life. Are you trusting God to give you the desires of your heart or His heart?

Yes, as we delight in the Lord our desires change. We actually begin to desire the things He wants for us, but even then it doesn’t look how you thought.

Example: I was hoping and praying this past year that if God wanted me to move to FL he would open the door. I wanted to badly to start a girls ministry down there, and that desire was not going away. I had all these ideas of studies I wanted to do &  events (you get the idea). I had big dreams, but in April it seemed that door opened only to be shut—or so I thought.

Almost two months later the door opened to start a College Girls’ Bible Study for the Pillars Girls Ministry (ministry I'm already apart of and serving in) and I was given the  green light to walk through the books I thought I would have been using in FL.

Did or did not God give me the desires of my heart? Yes, he did. The desire of my heart (the heart of my desire) was to disciple girls in the Word if God. God gave me the desires of my heart just not in the way I thought.

It might not be what you thought, but it's better than you could have ever imagined. His ways are higher!

Everything I have been reading lately, and conversations I have had keep pointing to and confirming the burning in my heart that says—stop worshiping the idol of your future husband.

Yep, I said Idol. Why? 

Richard Keyes puts it this way:

"An idol is something within creation that is inflated to function as God. All sorts of things are potential idols, depending only on our attitudes and actions toward them...Idolatry may not involve explicit denials of God's existence or character. It may well come in the form of an over-attachment to something that is in itself, perfectly good...An idol can be a physical object, a property, a person, an activity, a role, an institution, a hope, an image, and idea, a pleasure, a hero--anything that can substitute for God." 

"It's taking a good thing and making it an ultimate thing."- Kelly Minter 

It is something that you have created and said “okay God, give me this. I will only be happy with this!” Instead of just praying for God’s will and asking God to bring you who he has for you. Some of our expectations are way higher than God ever intended to give us. Remember, this is a guy not a god. His is human…Just. Like. You!

We ned to get out fixation off the created and on to the Creator.

Is it wrong to desire marriage? NO! Of course not! You’re looking at a girl who can’t wait until I get married, but marriage is not the destination…Jesus is!

“You are a slave to whatever controls you.” – 2 Peter 2:19 (NLT)

I ask you this question in love: Are you a slave to the future you have dreamed up for yourself?

I am learning it’s laying those dreams down at the feet of Jesus and trusting His heart towards me. It’s not trusting God to do what I say “in Jesus name” because that is not trust.  Trust is saying “I trust God period.” It doesn’t mean you are giving up on you’re dreams, it simply means you are surrendering to Christ's Lordship over your life and letting go. The three most freeing words: HE IS SOVEREIGN! 

I remember being at the beach back in June and having my quite time out on the porch, and I  felt the Lord tell me: “I am not trying to take anything from you…I am trying to give something to you.” When God is asking us to lay things down it’s not because he is trying to take anything necessarily away—he is simply getting things in their rightly place. He asks us to lay it down so He then can take his rightful place & everything else can fall in under Him.

“In the course of one day God so shifted my reality…”- Anything

If we are not careful we can become legalistic with Our Lists. I think about what Marian Jordan said in her book The List about what the Lord told her “I want you to trade your list in for mine.” Her response was “but, we’ve been together for so long.”  I am sure that is how some may feel (myself included). I am not telling you anything I am not PRESENTLY walking out right now with the Lord!

But, what if what you always imagined your life to look like is nothing in comparison to what God has in store? (1 Cor 2:9)

We (especially girls) want to know that A+B=C and “C” being marriage. It doesn’t work that way. Maybe this is all just for me, but I doubt it, but as mush as I want to get married and have a family if we are not careful we become all consumed with “that dream” that we miss all the other things and people around us. We miss out on simply getting to know God and making him known because we are so focused on “is this the one or is this one” or “When God” or “How God.” You get the idea.

Your motivation for seeking to live a life that glorifies God (ex. Purity) cannot be because you think that the result is a husband one day—it has to be because in light of what Jesus Christ did for you on the cross, you now desire to live for him. Obedience out of love not “rules, obligation, or hope of reward.” Simply because of who He is, and what He did—and because we were created to know Him and make Him known.

We have to be careful to not make the whole “List” idea a type of theology. Please, have standards (Biblical standards) but because you are so in love with Jesus Christ that you want others to see him in you, because you desire to live a life that points others to Christ. That is your motivation. Jesus! f

The most freeing thing for me was when I was praying about what it meant to be pursued by a guy in the contexts of a romantic relationship, and felt the Lord say to me “Love God. Love People.” Basically, don’t worry about--get on doing what you already know to do—love the Lord and love people, and all the relationship stuff will fall into place as you do those two things.